Balloon Animals

I would brave a clown, to bring you balloon animals.  To see your face light up in childlike delight and smile like the first time I saw you.  It would be worth the pain.  Worth the fear.  Because your heart is more dear to me than most, I would be brave for you.

I would sit and wait, just to let you find me.  To watch you search and gain your footing with the same determination of lifetimes ago.  It would be worth the waiting.  Worth the fear.  Because your heart is more dear to me than most, I would wait for you.

I would let you love me, to bring peace to our souls.  To feel that sense of belonging reach through the earth, down through our toes.  It would be worth the vulnerability.  Worth the fear.  Because your heart is more dear to me than most, I would open up for you.


 

Muses and Musings...

Lately my art has been pouring out... or at least the desire to create has been... life has been getting in the way of living, lately... but when the mood strikes I am trying my damnedest to race to my easel, let go and see what happens... here are some of my most recent efforts...

Daffodils

I love it when it rains.. whether it's torrential downpours that staccato-tap on the roof and window panes or gentle, hazy drizzles that soften and refract the light and make everything softly shimmer.  It reminds me of being a little girl and tracing the water tracks on the bay window that I used to love to perch on- sometimes it was my play stage, sometimes it was my secret spot to be surrounded by glass and, thus by the outside world, without having to venture too far... just depended on which way I was facing.  I love the nostalgia combined with the cleansing, purifying sensation that inevitably comes with the sky opening.  The air is clean and fresh and vibrant with potentiality.  

My daffodils and narcissus just started poking their little green heads up; I'm hoping my tulips and other bulbs will soon follow suit.  They inspire me- their willingness to dig themselves out of the darkness, out of their safe, moist-soil wombs and expose themselves to the harsh light of reality; so they can share their innate natural beauty with the world.  Fearless.  I'm sure they love the rain too.  

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. (Sir Francis Bacon)

Waves crash about- roaring silently, colliding against themselves and unseen lands: beneath, below and beyond perception.  How trying it is to navigate such uncharted territories- when obstacles arise without warning, without heed and threaten to bash your very being with their solidity.  I wonder sometimes how much one can truly take in any given moment, when really we are such fragile creatures.  

There is knowing in Tragedy.  There is knowing in Death.  There is knowing in Birth.  There is knowing in Exaltation.  There is understanding in those delicate existences, when one chooses to truly witness it.  How small our bodies, how large our souls, that radiate and emanate far beyond our corporeal forms.  To sense, to touch, to feel another is far simpler when our masses aren't hindering us so- the energies ripple and crave to meld- over any distance or space we deem is surmountable; yet we do not venture past arms' length, for fear of finding not only Other, but Ourselves.  And so we feel alone and sink.

Comforters

Comforters.  Those warm, heavy, soft, snuggly things you pile up on the bed when the weather-storms and emotive-storms are raging... they comfort.  Weigh you down, keep you low to the Earth; redistribute all that weight resting so heavily on your shoulders.  I am a collector of comforters- down ones, wool ones, quilted ones, four-legged furry ones that know in the depths of heartache it is simply best to just lay on top of their person.  

Last night there simply wasn't enough comfort- the need for more blanket, puppy smothering safety was unbearable and was left unsatiated, though somehow I did drift to sleep.  Two months ago my bed was not big enough- wars were waged and many a battle lost in the fight for outstretched limbs and sole pillow propriety.  The past week there has been far too much space.  Emptiness.  Isn't that what I asked for?  Isn't that what I prayed for all these months?  A sense of spaciousness?  To delve into the abyss of nothingness?  To embrace the void?  Here it is.  I am face to face with it- the Void has become my bed-partner, consuming the space my husband once filled.  

I think, perhaps, I'd forgotten just how empty Space really is.  How hard it is to fill it with knick knacks and bric-a-brac.  How kitsch just doesn't cut it.  Realizing two had somehow become one, and now are dividing and slipping back into twoness.  How that twoness has allotted me the *space* to truly be a ONE.  To be whole and complete in and of myself- independent.  Unincorporated.  Sole proprietress of my life.  

That spaciousness truly is beautiful and quiet- oh so quiet!  I've yet to turn the TV on, though mild inquisitiveness prompts me to check if it still works.... hmm.  I get to be me, with myself, in all my entirety and no one can stop me.  It truly is beautiful.  But sometimes I just want those comforters- sometimes I just want to pile them on, all those layers of steady, heavy love, and be lulled to sleep by their constant, weighty warmth.  

aspirations and inspirations

Surprisingly found in the same spot.  In other words:  She's fucking dope.

http://helloabsurdworld.blogspot.com/

Sea Otters

Sometimes I feel like I live in an apartment.  Or a dorm.  Or a frat house.  I've only ever personally experienced one of those aforementioned, in a "live-in-sorta-way" - but I have a great imagination, and I think I know what it would be like.  No- not in the beer bottles and cans that seem to litter every flat surface-and-then-some, kind of way.... or in the toilet is so covered in uhck you're not sure if you should clean it, brush it or sledgehammer caution tape it, way either... but in the "really, are my neighbors bumping RAVE beats right now?  Did they not get the memo?  It's 2010 folks.  Pull your head out of the pot-closet and buy a flippin' calendar.  Also, it's Sunday.  It's 2:30 in the afternoon.  Rave beats?  Seriously?  Now??"

For clarity's sake:  I live in a lovely, quiet neighborhood (for the most part).  I live at the end of a cul-de-sac in a little cottage, that is in a row with four other little cottages.  Ours is yellow.  I'm not a fan of yellow, but I am discovering I am a fan of yellow cottages.  Who'da thunk?  I guess every color has it's proper place.  Or maybe I am color-maturing.  I'm not sure.  I live where neighbor-kitty Blossom jumps in your car when you open the door upon arriving home and looks at you inquisitively as if to say "I've been waiting for you to arrive and chauffer me about town!  What took you so long?  Off with her head!"  Then follows you inside your house as if she owns the place.  I live where neighbor-people send you cards when your Dad dies, and allow your rambunctious pup to play with their unimpressed labradoodle without question, because they know you just really need a break, and they think it's character building for their doggie.  It's a great spot.

What can I say?  My day is quickly degenerating into a huge case of the WTFs.  This is minor.  I get that.  But it's feeling huge.  And I'm still typing about it, and you know what?  The rave beats totally stopped.  Probably five or six sentences ago.  It's not even an issue anymore.  Now I'm just unnecessarily perturbed- and even began writing a second blog about why sea otters aren't all that...just to change the subject... but I stopped myself.  That right there is restraint, because really, sea otters *are* all that, and I think maybe that's what's got me so worked up today.  Damn sea otters.

Puppies for Hire

Sometimes you just have to laugh.  Like, when you hear a loud, repetitive knock on your front door and you instinctually know it's not someone you want to see.  Like, oh, a process server.  He and I are getting to know each other well.  We were first introduced a few days before my Dad's funeral, after my sister answered the door to his loud, repetitive knock and began giving him FAR too much information about my relationship to my Dad.  Sissy loves being helpful.  Unfortunately, I was on the phone at the time with the San Francisco Chronicle taking care of Dad's obituary and wasn't exactly in the friendliest of moods ($400+ for an obit?!  are you SERIOUS?!  bastards.) and sort of "shot the messenger" with a barrage of "He doesn't live here.  He's never lived here.  He passed away 5 days ago- you rude, opportunistic money-monger.. you can take your papers and...." well, I didn't finish the statement, because he looked like he was going to cry, and I think I looked like a gorgon and was scaring him.  He apologized profusely for the confusion, and stepped away to make a phone call.  I waited patiently.  Well, actually, I returned to my opportunistic money-monger Chronicle call, and wrapped that up (multi-tasking at its finest) and THEN waited patiently for him to tell me unfortunately he'd more than likely be returning to serve the papers to me.  I think I slammed the door in his face.  I know I said more than a few choice words.  I cried.  I called Husby.  I called Dad's lawyer.  Dad's lawyer gently advised me to try to be nicer when the process server returned, and to mail him the papers.  I snuffled in compliance.

(Jump forward to 30 minutes ago)

**KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK**  (yes, that many- I am not one to exaggerate.  Much.)

"Oh, hello.  Good morning.  Was there something you'd like to give me?"  I think he thinks I'm bipolar.  I'm okay with that.

"Umm, well, this card was left on your porch," as he stoops and hands me what is sure to be another sympathy card "and yes, I need to give you these."  He says this without raising his hand to actually give me the papers.

"Okay. Well, let's have them, then.  I figured you didn't drive all this way to hand me my mail."

"I just, well, miss, I just feel so bad for you.  How are you doing?  Are you hanging in there?  Have all the arrangements been made?  Was your father ill?  Did it come as a surprise?"

"Sir.  Umm, thank you...?  I'm fine, really.  Everything is taken care of.  My father had cancer and we knew he would pass.  Thank you for your concern.  May I have the papers, please?"

"It's just, well, can I DO anything for you?"

"Wanna go to court for me?  Not really looking forward to it too much..."

"Oh,"   "Well, miss... that's an awful cute puppy you have, do you think I could rent her?  I bet people would be nicer to me if I brought her to the door."

See that?  He changed the subject.  Why?  Because NO ONE likes going to court.  Not even process servers, apparently.

"Yeah.  No.  She's not for hire.  Chloe, get in the damn house."    "Papers?  Please?"

"Oh- hear you go.  Please, take care."

So, I close the door, start sifting through the stapled packet and he knocks again, another seven times.  I wonder at this point, just how large he thinks my little cottage is...?  And also if at this point he's going to ask me out to coffee.  He looks like a coffee drinker.  I'm more of a tea fan.  It would never work.  That and he's old enough to be my father and I doubt Husby would agree to me going on dates with process servers.  But you never know.  Regardless, he's just not my type.  I can just tell he drinks coffee.

"Yes??"

"I forgot to ask your name.... sorry."

"How exactly do you serve papers to someone when you don't know their name..?  You know what?  Nevermind.  Don't answer that.  My name is Danielle Chapatte."

"Chapatte?  That name sounds so familiar."

"Yea, yea, yea, they're all over the damn place.  Big family.  Everyone knows someone.  K.  Thanks!  Bye."

So, I closed the door.  Again.  A little more abruptly this time, though not exactly a slam- just in case he was considering the coffee offer.  And I laughed.  And decided to blog about it.  What a lovely morning this is turning out to be.

Who decides one day that they will, for a living, serve people papers that will devastate their lives, or at the least, seriously foul up their day?  Coffee drinkers.  Obviously.  Even if they are nice ones, there has to be something just not right to choose that as a career path.  I bet he prefers skittles over M&Ms as well.  But that's another blog for another day.

Somethings

Somethings are meant to be heard.  Words that slip.  Sidle, heavy and expectant- effulgent.  Wet.  Weighty words hold meaning- I love you.  Goodbye.  Baby cry- lullaby.  Symbolic syllables, shape-shift, slide;  stretch their meaning across the vastness: one mouth to millions, to one, to none.  Sounds that fill the Void with their own emptiness and reverberate.  Echo.

Somethings are meant to be heard.  I love you.  Goodbye.  A baby cry- lullaby: falling on deaf ears: holds no weight, no measure, bears no story of it's own.  My story unfolds, unfurls; finds itself caught in your ear, tumbling, polishing: a murmur, a roar, an enchantment.  Ocean roils, empty-vast-void, mistaken moments.

Somethings are meant to be heard.  Baby cry-lullaby.  I love you.  Goodbye.

Sane Heartache

Dad passed away.  Passed on.  Left his body.  He died.  He is deceased.  He is gone- and now he is dust.  It sounds harsh- when I read such words out loud.  Words *I* typed.  Words that escaped my lips- crossed my mind.

It is difficult to properly mourn in our society.  There's no room for it- not with bills to pay, and businesses to send death certificates to.  Bank accounts to close.  Neighbors, family, friends and a handful of unknowns to call, thank for flowers, send notes to.  Where is the keening?  The wailing?  The black garb that swaddles and protects you from Society?  We no longer have those things.  Instead we have cell phones and email and instant message that incessantly bombards you with do-gooders checking in.  I fantasized that when Dad died, I would enter into silence.  I wouldn't utter a word, save for the Buddhist Shitro practice (done when someone dies, to wash them of their karmas and help them reincarnate in the highest, most enlightened form possible, for them) for a full 40 days.  That would be dynamic.  Instead I wake to my phone ringing, far earlier than I'd care to wake up at.  If I silence it I then have to sift through and call people back all morning long... I've yet to decide which feels more inconvenient.  I'll get back to you on that one.  Basically, it adds up to a whole lot of talking that cuts completely into my silence.

I cry.  I do.  Don't get me wrong- I cry when I open the refrigerator door.  I cry when a character says something on TV that reminds me of something that has nothing to do with Dad, and that makes me think, maybe I hadn't been thinking about him enough.  I cry.  I do.  But I don't wallow.  And if I do venture towards the Land of Lost Hope, Despair and Hiccup-sobs, I usually get waylaid and find myself back in the Land of Mediocre Sorrow and Furrowed Brows.  The melodrama just doesn't entice like it used to- not to say that a hearty bawling isn't cathartic, and doesn't have its place... just that its siren song no longer captivates me in the same way.  Maybe I have ADD.  Or the meditation finally kicked in.  (That was meditation, folks- not medication... I know, I know.  Fine line, right?)

I think the Reiki helps.  I think now, perhaps it is synonymous with sanity.  "Oh, where are you going tonight?"  "I'm just going to get a little sanity... be back in a few!"  I am finding that I am open- I am processing.  I am riding my emotional waves and they're pretty chill.  No tsunami for me!  (Yet.)  I will say physically, I feel like I've been beaten with a baseball bat.  Between my shoulder blades- where, all you acute yogis, new-agers and energy workers will know, is the backside of my heart chakra.  I feel.  I feel everything.  Intensely.  I barely even squirm from it.  I impress myself.  I keep going back for "sanity" and "sanity attunements", just to check in- just to ask "Am I really open?  Are you sure this isn't a form of shutting down?  I'm so not hysterical.  Shouldn't I be hysterical?  I'm pretty hysterical by nature.  I'm sure of it.  Or at least, I was.  Now I'm not so sure of anything.  Maybe Chloe learned how to swing a bat?  Maybe I pulled something?  Maybe I stayed in supported fish too long?  No?  Really?  I'd have sworn it was a fish-pose problem.  Damn.  So this is what sane-heartache feels like."

Storm

Where is my vice, my vent, my volatile succumbing to sin?

Quiet before the storm... perhaps after...? during.  In its very midst.  Trapped in an eye of bloodshot sobriety, sober-riotry... I cannot ache for I cannot feel past this emptiness.  In its very midst.  Surrounded, strapped down, shackled to its intense reverberating beauty.  How vile- delicate, bittersweet- torrential.  Just pour.  Fall forth, fall down, disseminate, disintegrate, deteriorate.  Just let me sleep.  For this tears and nags and rips-staccato across my skin, gnawing; unwanted soul-tattoo.  And I just wanted respite.